Plastics Reality Check

Plastics Reality Check

Sciences Advances journal 19, July 2017 published “Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made” by Roland Geyer, Jenna R. Jambeck and Kara Lavender Law. We know plastics have outgrown most man-made materials and have long been under scrutiny, by identifying and synthesizing dispersed data on production, use and end-of-life management, the results are staggering. The results are staggering:

An estimated 8300 million metric tons have been produced to date.

Plastic takes more than 400 years to degrade.

Approximately 12 billion metric tons of plastic waste will end up in landfills by 2050.

Of the 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic that has been produced, 6.3 billion metric tons has become plastic waste.

Half of all plastic manufactured becomes trash in less than a year.

To read the entire journal article, just click the graphic below created by Janet A. Beckley.